Multimedia

Narratives

Site Information

Who's Who - Sir Horace Lockwood Smith-Dorrien

Sir Horace Lockwood Smith-Dorrien
(1858-1930) was born at Haresfoot in in 1858.

Sponsored Links

With the outbreak of war
Smith-Dorrien, who was a veteran of the 1879 Battle of Isandhlwana and the
Second Boer War of 1899-1902, was given command of II Corps of Sir John
French's British Expeditionary Force (BEF). He was praised for his
conduct during the Battles of
Mons and
Le Cateau in August 1914, and was
given command of Second Army from December 1914 to April 1915.

Smith-Dorrien fell foul of
Sir John French, whom he little respected, during the
Second Battle of
Ypres, when he recommended a strategic withdrawal closer to Ypres, feeling
that nothing short of a major counter-offensive was likely to regain the
ground taken by the Germans during their offensive.

French disagreed,
dismissing Smith-Dorrien home to England upon the pretext of ill-health, and
replacing him with Herbert Plumer, who ironically also recommended a
withdrawal upon taking up his position; French accepted Plumer's advice.

Sir
Horace Lockwood Smith-Dorrien, who never held another field command, served
as governor of Gibraltar from 1918-23, and died in August 1930 from injuries
sustained in a road accident.